In California, Arizona, and other western states, homeowners devote many more hours to gardening and yard work than in many other states. This fact coupled with the delight of Californians especially with the automobile and truck leads many people to combine these two interests and to use their trucks for the retrieval of plants, garden bark, mulch, topsoil, and decorative stones, large and small. Once the truck bed is loaded at the local store, with the mulch, bark stones etc., all of which collectively shall be designated as particulates, the driver returns home with the need to unload the particulates. The tailgate is lowered and the particulates are usually manually transferred by shovel to the driveway or the work locus.
Whether the transfer is by scoop, shovel, broom, wood board or any other means, it is inevitable that some of the particulates will fall into the crack between the lowered tailgate and the truck bed. The removal of these undesirables can be tedious and time consuming due to the often stoop over hand labor required to remove the stones or bark chips from the narrow slot between the tailgate and the truck bed.
Applicant having experienced this chore on more than one occasion decided to create a device that would alleviate the need to carry out the removal chore by preventing the particulates from falling into the long narrow slot between the lowered tailgate and the truck bed. Thus, this invention was born. Applicant not only solved the problem by filling in the gap, but he also went further and figured out a way to easily remove the device such that the tailgate could be returned from its horizontal and open to the vertical and closed position. The device proved successful and so applicant devised a means to reduce its size such that the device could be readily mailed or shipped such that others could enjoy his freedom from the chore of crack cleaning.
The invention accordingly comprises the device possessing the features, properties, the selection of components which are amplified in the following detailed disclosure, and the scope of the application of which will be indicated in the appended claims.
For a fuller understanding of the nature and objects of the invention, reference should be made to the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.